High-Temperature Readings

TransAtlantic

Colum McCann, June 4

McCann (Let the Great World Spin) braids together three narratives about Ireland: the former slave Frederick Douglass visits Dublin in 1845; two airmen attempt to take the first flight from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919; and in 1998, a U.S. Senator brokers peace talks in Belfast.

Big Brother

Lionel Shriver, June 4

Shriver (We Need to Talk About Kevin) tells the story of Pandora, her ultra-fit husband Fletcher and her brother Edison, a once dapper jazz pianist who has suddenly, shockingly, become morbidly obese.

The Shining Girls

Lauren Beukes, June 4

A time-traveling serial killer skips back and forth in time, murdering the young women he calls “shining girls”–except for one, who fights back. The premise is pure Stephen King, but Beukes gives it an intricate, lyrical treatment all her own.

Joyland

Stephen King, June 4

Speaking of whom … Wrapped in a gloriously pulpy cover, Joyland is a coming-of-age story set in 1973 at a North Carolina amusement park–creepy!–that’s haunted by a murderer.

The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls

Anton DiSclafani, June 4

It’s 1930, and 15-year-old Thea Atwell is entering the insular, sun-soaked world of an exclusive equestrian boarding school in North Carolina. We discover it with her–and find out, in flashbacks, the family scandal that got her sent there.

The Engagements

J. Courtney Sullivan, June 11

As the title implies, this is a book about marriages: long and short, equal and unequal, pleasant and unpleasant. Sullivan (Commencement, Maine) sets them off against the story of the young advertising writer who wrote the indelible line “A diamond is forever.”

The Silver Star

Jeannette Walls, June 11

Readers of Walls’ memoir of poverty The Glass Castle know she can fend for herself. That’s what “Bean” Holladay has to do when her mother leaves her and her precocious sister to make their own way in a mill town in Virginia in the 1970s.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Neil Gaiman, June 18

The master fantasist (American Gods) introduces us to a 7-year-old boy in rural England who discovers that his neighbors are considerably more than human–and that their duck pond is really an ocean.

Lexicon

Max Barry, June 18

Imagine, if you will, a secret group of people called Poets who have the power to control others simply by speaking to them. Barry has, and the result is an extraordinarily fast, funny, cerebral thriller.

Sisterland

Curtis Sittenfeld, June 25

Kate and Violet are identical twins, but the really unusual thing about them is that they’re psychic. One twin grows up wild, the other suburban and conventional, but each has to make her own separate peace with her gifts.

Big Girl Panties

Stephanie Evanovich, July 9

Evanovich (her aunt is Janet, of Stephanie Plum fame) tells the story of Holly, 32, who is newly widowed and heavier than she’d like to be. When she hires a personal trainer, will their workouts get, um, physical? Answer: yes.

Night Film

Marisha Pessl, Aug. 20

It’s been seven years since Pessl’s successful debut, Special Topics in Calamity Physics. Now she’s back with a thriller about a reclusive, Kubrickian filmmaker and the mysterious death of his daughter.

Claire of the Sea Light

Edwidge Danticat, Aug. 27

Danticat was born in Haiti, and her new book takes place in a village there, where a man must decide whether to give his daughter away to someone who can offer her a better life. Before he can make his choice, she vanishes.

Ghost Hawk

Susan Cooper, Aug. 27

Cooper is best known for her classic fantasy The Dark Is Rising, but here she gives us a realistic look at 17th century New England, where a friendship between two boys–one white, one Native American–gets caught up in adult racial tensions.